Council suffers blow as its children’s services named among England’s worst

The watchdog has found “serious weaknesses” in the council’s services to safeguard children and called for improvements in the way it handles access to children’s social care.

Ofsted has published the results of its annual children’s services assessments for councils across England today.

It shows the majority of authorities are providing good or better children’s services, with 28 authorities providing excellent services for children in their area, eight more than last year.

York is the only council in the region to be rated as excellent.

Across Yorkshire six councils: Barnsley, Bradford, Doncaster, Hull, Leeds and Rotherham are rated as performing adequately. Four authorities: East Riding, North Yorkshire, Sheffield and Wakefield are said to be performing well.

Calderdale’s assessment follows criticisms of the council’s children’s services last year. In 2010 the council suspended a number of staff and promised a full overhaul of its children’s care services after independent consultants uncovered massive failings which could have left vulnerable children at risk of abuse and neglect.

Among the failures revealed in their report were 30 children subject to protection plans who had not even been assigned their own social worker, and some assessments carried out by staff who had not seen the child in question.

Calderdale Council appointed Janet Donaldson as director of children and young people’s services in 2009. It emerged last week she had been suspended over what was described as “an internal matter”.

Commenting on Ofsted’s latest findings, the council’s interim director for children and young people, Stuart Smith, said: “The safety and wellbeing of children is a top priority and Calderdale Council is continuing to work with its partners to bring about sustained improvement of children’s services.”

Coun Ruth Potter, York’s cabinet member for education, children and young people’s services, said: “I’m delighted that our services for children and young people have once again been rated as amongst the very best in the country.

“I would like to take the opportunity to acknowledge the tremendous commitment of staff across the service whose contribution is the basis for achieving this type of excellence.”